Alauddin Khalji, a Sultan Who Did Not Care About Prophet Muhammad and Shariat
“I do what I think is in the best interest of the state; I do not care whether it conforms to the shariat or not” - Alauddin Khalji to Qazi Mughisuddin, who had announced to the Sultan that almost everything he did violated the shariat. One grave problem with history is that while historians seek it out in all its complexities, popular perception reduces it to utter simplicities, as entirely one dimensional. If for the historian any age or a reign or a ruler would be marked by diverse and often conflicting facets and actions, for the TV channels and for the slogan shouting mobs, an age gets visualised as uniformly golden or dark, a ruler is forever either weak or strong, kind or cruel, liberal or dogmatic, anti-this or pro-that. One wishes history was as simple as that. Indeed, even as our own individual, family or institutional lives are more multidimensional than this gross simplicity! And things get far more complex at the apex. The popular image of Alauddin Khalji bei...